Topics

1

General / Trouble aligning chunks with cameras

« on: September 27, 2020, 05:27:54 PM »

Because of the number of cameras (c. 1000) and the limited capacity of my computer, I am building a model of a stone building in chunks. I have successfully aligned chunks of several portions of the structure using camera positions, however I am having difficulty aligning one room interior. To connect the room with the exterior, I included 14 photos from the exterior around the doorway to the room in the room chunk. Alignment etc. went fine, all aligned properly. However, when I then attempt to align this chunk using cameras, nothing happens.

Any ideas where I might be going wrong? Why might the align fail technically?

2

General / Can't move object

« on: April 21, 2019, 03:29:56 PM »

This probably has a simple answer, but sometimes when I am moving and rotating an object and the region, the object button becomes inactive (greyed out) and I can only act on the region. Any ideas?

3

General / Remove GPS information

« on: May 27, 2018, 06:04:42 PM »

Apologies if I have missed a previous post. I wonder if there is a way to ignore the GPS EXIF data in Photoscan without resorting to Python. I have a set of drone photos I collected, the initial few of which have 0s for coordinates, but are otherwise fine. As a result the model produced is aberrant.  I don't need the GPS locations but would like to use all my photos.

Thanks!

4

General / align selected cameras

« on: April 06, 2018, 06:09:50 PM »

I have a general question. I ran a model with 684 photos, going all the way through including creating texture for the mesh model. Took a long time. About 30 of the photos did not align, so I ran align selected cameras, which then aligned about half of the aligned cameras. My question is at what stage am I after doing this? Must I run create dense cloud again (a very long part of the process), or does align selected photos add to the existing cloud, in which case I can go directly to mesh build?

I've asked this before, but why doesn't photoscan do an automatic align check on the unaligned photos after completion of the initial alignment? In other words, why isn't 'align selected photos' performed automatically?

5

Python and Java API / Adjusting console pane information

« on: April 23, 2017, 10:46:54 PM »

Is it possible to programatically turn off the console pane logging information (the time and date to the left)? I would like the console pane to just contain the listing and output.

6

Python and Java API / Missing Index

« on: April 14, 2017, 11:43:02 PM »

The new 1.3.1 manual appears to be missing its module index. Downloaded it twice and only a P on pg. 81.

7

General / Trouble exporting texture to Meshlab

« on: March 21, 2016, 04:38:19 PM »

This may be more a Meshlab than Photoscan issue, but several times recently when I export an .obj model from Photoscan, when I import it into Meshlab, the texture will not import. The Meshlab message says:

Error encountered while loading file (xxx.obj).

Error details: Some materials definitions were not found , a default white material is used where no material was available.

The texture .jpg is in fact in the same folder, and I sometimes have models whose texture loads just fine.

As indicated, only the shaded mesh imports. I have tried clicking the UDIM option on and off when exporting, and fixing the topology of the mesh as well. Same result.

Any ideas?

8

Feature Requests / User Interface change requests

« on: March 20, 2016, 04:54:35 PM »

Some minor requests:

1. Ability to "bookmark" a view, to allow the user to return to a particular perspective after making edits. Useful, for instance, to display cut-away images of objects, before and after.

2. Creation of a toolbar for show/hide items, with on-off buttons, saving needless clicks returning to the menu to show/hide multiple items.

3. Ability to drag chunks up and down in the Workspace pane, to better organize them.

4. Ability to choose color for the close hole option. The pink is a little garish sometimes.

5. For batch jobs, have subsequently added tasks use the same chunks as the first by default. That is, if align points uses one chunk out of 7, then build dense cloud should too by default, with the option to modify it. Simple change, but it costs time when many batch jobs are processed.

9

General / Aligning top and bottom of an object

« on: March 09, 2016, 12:00:39 AM »

I would like to align the top and bottom of an artifact, in this case a pot with three legs, to create a full 3D model. The surface has a painted design plus cracks, and the legs are modeled, so the object is not at all a regular or featureless surface.

Rather than create masks (too time consuming for production purposes), my idea was to take the object upside down (42 photos) and create a model, than do the same with the pot right side up, 45 photos. In both cases the photos from the two chunks aligned very well, so I had one chunk resting upright on a flat surface, the other inverted on the flat surface. I made sure to take a circle of photos around the side in both cases.

I had hope that by removing both the dense and sparse clouds of the support layer (the flat surface), plus a bit more, the two chunks would align. They aligned, but with the legs from the inverted model pointing up, and those from the normal model pointing down (see attached).

Can anyone explain the error of my ways and why Photoscan will not align the two correctly (or even why it will align it the way it does!). I thought alignment was performed on the point cloud.

Thanks

10

General / Difficulties measuring using scale bars

« on: March 06, 2016, 10:53:08 PM »

I am having difficulty using a scale bar to measure between two points, and the manual is not very clear on the procedure. I am able to set marker points (both on photos and directly on the model) and then can create an initial scale bar using two of the points. I then can also click on View Source and enter the distance between a pair of the points. Any time I toggle back to View Source, the value is still there, the line between them is highlighted, as are the points. So, up to this point all is OK.

My difficult comes in the next step. I go to the Reference tab, click View Estimated. I select another pair of marker points, right-click on them, and select Create Scale Bar. The bar is created and is selected. However, no Distance est value appears next to it. I double click on the area - nothing. The boxes next to both scale bars is unchecked. Can't figure what I am doing incorrectly, and in fact it worked once when I was clicking randomly about. Unfortunately I couldn't replicate it.

I also notice that if I right-click on the marker point and select Filter Photos by Marker, nothing appears (though the markers do in fact appear in multiple photos).

Using v. 1.2.3 Pro, Windows.

Any help would be greatly appreciated,  I really need the information.

Thanks!

11

General / Align selected cameras

« on: March 02, 2016, 01:01:59 AM »

Can anyone explain why "align selected cameras" works on (some) photos following an alignment, but these same photos are not aligned in the original alignment pass? In other words, why does alignment initially fail for a given photo, then succeed during "align selected cameras"? Shouldn't the program be "smart" enough to make a second pass during full alignment to see if unaligned photos can be aligned before finishing?

12

Python and Java API / Extracting profiles

« on: December 02, 2015, 06:13:49 PM »

I would like to extract the profile of an object, such as a pot, from my Photoscan model. My idea is to slice off half the pot at midline, then use fill holes to provide the profile (I want a solid representation of the cross-section). It works pretty well, but the edge produced by slicing the mesh is rather ragged, which can lead to spurious facets on the profile. This is true even with mesh reconstruction at the highest settings.

Has anyone devised a script to provide a "clean" linear cut through a mesh?

13

General / Difficulties with align chunks using cameras

« on: November 03, 2015, 05:20:15 PM »

I have been using align chunks with cameras with success to preview alignments. However, I am having difficulty aligning chunks created from photos that I downsampled using Photoshop. The photos align well enough in individual chunks, but I can't get the chunks to align using camera positions. I have tried building "bridge" sections to tie chunks together better; the object is a long low building and the "bridge" extends its entire front, but no luck.

I have made no attempt to modify the settings of the downsampled photos, other than to note that they exist (though the dimensions are correct, some fields appear unaltered from the original). Could this be causing the problem? Like I said, I have built bridges using photos from two other chunks, but they will then not align.  Downsampled from 5184x3456  to 3456x2304.

14

Python and Java API / identifying non-aligned photos

« on: October 23, 2015, 02:29:52 PM »

I am new to Python scripting. What is the property that identifies a photo/camera as unaligned (N/A)? I searched the documentation but couldn't find it. I would like to run a script to list all photos/cameras that are not aligned.

15

General / Alignment questions

« on: May 17, 2015, 09:05:01 PM »

I have a question about alignment procedures and strategy. I made a medium-level alignment of 178 photographs and all of them aligned. I then added 30 images and performed another medium alignment. 195 aligned, but 14 of the original images failed to align (so 9 of the new additions did not align as well). I then performed a high-level alignment on the 208 photos. Only 183 aligned, but 13 of the 14 images from the first round returned. In all cases the aligned photographs appear to be where they should be.

Since I would like to use medium alignment as a preview in the field to see if my coverage is sufficient, I wonder if I could get an explanation of why photos are rejected in medium vs. high level, and why aligned photos might get rejected when additional photos are added.